Advance Healthcare Directive: A legal document that names a healthcare agent and records your wishes about medical treatment and end-of-life care.
Annuity: A contract with an insurance company that can provide income and may pay a death benefit to a named beneficiary.
Arrangement Conference: The meeting with a funeral home to plan services and make decisions after a death.
Beneficiary: A person or organization that receives assets from a will, trust, insurance policy, or account.
Beneficiary Designation: A form naming who receives an account or policy at death. It usually overrides a will.
Bereavement: The period of grief and adjustment after a death.
Burial Vault (Grave Liner): A container that holds the casket in the ground; often required by cemeteries.
Casket: A container for the body for viewing and burial.
Certified Death Certificate: An official copy of the death certificate required by most institutions to process claims and transfers.
Columbarium: A structure with niches for holding cremated remains.
Conservatorship: A court process that appoints someone to manage the finances of a person who can no longer do so; often avoidable with a power of attorney.
Contingent Beneficiary: A backup beneficiary who receives assets if the primary beneficiary has died.
Cremation: The process of reducing a body to cremated remains through heat.
Direct Burial: Burial shortly after death without a viewing or formal service.
Direct Cremation: Cremation shortly after death without a viewing or formal service; typically the least expensive option. Durable Financial Power of Attorney: A document naming someone to manage your finances if you become incapacitated. "Durable" means it remains in effect after incapacity.
Embalming: A process that temporarily preserves the body, usually for a viewing.
Estate: Everything a person owns at death, along with their debts.
Executor: The person named in a will to settle the estate. In Utah, called the personal representative.
Fiduciary: A person legally required to act in another's best interest, such as a trustee, personal representative, or agent.
FTC Funeral Rule: A federal rule that gives consumers the right to itemized pricing and to choose only the goods and services they want.
Funding a Trust: Retitling assets into a trust's name so the trust controls them.
General Price List (GPL): The itemized list of prices a funeral home must provide under the FTC Funeral Rule.
Green Burial: A burial with minimal environmental impact, often without embalming or a vault.
Guardian: A person named to care for minor children if their parents die; typically named in a will.
Heir: A person entitled to inherit under state law when there is no will.
HIPAA Authorization: A document allowing medical providers to share your health information with the people you choose.
Hospice: Care focused on comfort for people with a terminal illness, typically covered by Medicare.
Informal Probate: A simpler probate process available in Utah that usually doesn't require court hearings.
Intestate: Dying without a valid will. State law then decides who inherits.
Letters Testamentary / Letters of Administration: Court documents giving a personal representative authority to act for the estate. Living Trust (Revocable Living Trust): A trust you create and control during your life that passes assets to beneficiaries at death, usually without probate.
Memorial Service: A service held without the body present.
Obituary: A published notice of a death, often including a life summary and service details.
Palliative Care: Medical care focused on comfort and quality of life, available at any stage of serious illness.
Payable-on-Death (POD): A designation that passes a bank account directly to a named beneficiary.
Personal Representative: Utah's term for the person who settles an estate through probate.
Pour-Over Will: A will that moves any assets left outside a trust into the trust.
Pre-Need Contract: An agreement to plan, and often pay for, funeral services in advance.
Probate: The court-supervised process of validating a will, paying debts, and distributing assets.
Small Estate Affidavit: A simplified way to collect personal property of a small estate without full probate, if eligible. In Utah, generally available when the estate does not exceed $100,000 and includes no real estate.
Successor Trustee: The person who manages and distributes a trust after the creator dies or becomes incapacitated.
Transfer-on-Death (TOD): A designation that passes an investment account or certain property directly to a named beneficiary.
Trust: A legal arrangement in which a trustee holds assets for beneficiaries.
Trustee: The person who manages a trust.
Viewing (Visitation): A gathering where family and friends see the deceased and offer condolences before the funeral.
Will: A legal document stating who receives your property and who will settle your estate.